JACKSON, MI – The Civil War was over, and hopes of prosperity and growth in 1865 were high among business owners in the victorious Union states.

Frederick “Fritz” Von Koempf was one of them. He had landed in New York from Germany’s Black Forest in the early 1860s. After “Americanizing” his name to Kempf, the teenager made his way to Jackson and the home of an uncle.

Unhappy with that arrangement, Kempf ventured out on his own into the booming and bustling railroad hub that Jackson was then. He landed a job with Alexander and Clara Brown, owners of a small grocery store on the corner of what now is Greenwood Avenue and Morrell Street.

Kempf was happy there and when Alexander Brown died in 1865, he became Clara’s business partner. With Mount Evergreen Cemetery located across the street, the pair decided to focus solely on flowers and urns. They named their venture Clara Brown & Co. Florists. Kempf was the “Co.”

Now, 148 years later, the fourth generation of Kempf’s family – sisters Chris Grostefon and Diana Jonas – is still running the store. It’s Jackson’s oldest business and Michigan’s oldest floral company still operated by the same family in its original location.

“I don’t think words can describe how much pride we feel in that,” Grostefon said.

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Kempf was thrifty and hard-working and, by age 18, he had enough money to buy Brown out. The business became Brown Floral Co., with Kempf keeping the Brown name because the store already had a well-established line of credit with European flower suppliers.

Kempf married Otilla “Tillie” Ortwein, who also was of German descent. They had two daughters, Clara and Helen, and a son, Milton.

Around 1902, Kempf bought the neighboring Sunnyside Greenhouse from William R. Tubbs. Because they grew most of the flowers they used in the shop, there were 15 greenhouses located on the store’s property at one time.

In its heyday, 15 workers were employed at the store and more than 20,000 carnations were raised each year. A bulb farm on Kibby Road also provided cut spring flowers.

Like with many Jackson businesses, the Great Depression was rough on Brown Floral Co. Tillie Kempf kept journals and, on March 1, 1933, she wrote, "everything is still at a standstill."

During that time, Brown Floral Co. employees worked for food or room and board, Grostefon said. Customers used milk tickets as payment for flowers for funerals and other occasions.

“I remember seeing in the books that money was loaned to an employee whose son needed surgery for a ruptured appendix,” she said. “It shows how that man paid back all he was given a little at a time as he could.”

In 1941, siblings Clara and Milton Kempf took over the family business. Milton’s son, Robert, came on board in 1939, obtaining his driver’s license at age 14 during World War II so he could make deliveries.

Grostefon and Jonas, who are Robert’s daughters, have now taken over for their father but are unsure if there will be any other family members to carry on once they are gone.

Jonas, however, has discovered that the store’s attics are a treasure trove of artifacts that will preserve forever the business’ long and storied history. She’s created a “museum” at the front of the store displaying old photographs and relics from its earliest days.

“I will never get rid of this stuff,” Jonas said. “It tells the story of the family, as well as the business.”

• Clara Kempf attended business college after graduating from high school. She then spent three years as secretary to Jackson Public Schools Superintendent E.O. Marsh before joining the family business full time.

• Although flowers were his mainstay, Robert Kempf “moonlighted” for 20 years as a square dance caller, calling national and international festivals throughout the U.S. and into Canada.

• Robert Kempf and his wife, Marilyn, had four daughters, Pam, Sandy, Christine and Diane.

• Other notes in Tillie Kempf’s journals include items on local funerals, payroll expenses and the deaths of President Calvin Coolidge and Jackson Mayor Frank Bennett.

• Milton Kempf met his wife, Dorothea, while attending college in Indiana. Besides Robert they also had son Fred and daughters Doris and Margaret. Dorothea, who grew up in a wealthy family, thought she was going to have it easy as the wife of a Jackson business owner. She was a little dismayed, family members said, to learn she was responsible for feeding employees and working in the store. She tried to flee back to her Indiana family, but her father sent her back to her husband.

• The store’s busiest day of the year is Valentine’s Day. Its busiest time of the year is Christmas. From Easter to Mother’s Day, Brown Floral Co. sells as many plants as it does cut flowers.

• Brown Floral Co. once provided much of the true palm fronds for Palm Sunday services at several Jackson churches.

• Brown Floral Co.’s colorful roof at 908 Greenwood Ave. landed the business in hot water in 2010 when city officials said its shingles that made up three flowers and spelled “Since 1865” and “Brown” violated Jackson’s sign ordinance. The business is a Michigan Centennial Business and the roof was designed to resemble what’s done on centennial barns, co-owner Chris Grostefon said. After an outpouring of support for the store, the Jackson City Council voted to make a roof sign not a sign for the purposes of the city’s sign ordinance. The roof, Grostefon said, looks great on satellite maps.